Lee Hyun, now an old man, (in his sixties) sat in front of the glowing screen thinking pensively about the offer.
The message continued “The starting salary is not much given the industry high, but I managed to convince the board to surrender to you an additional 15% stake, doesn’t sound bad?”
Lee Hyun’s eyes shined in the darkness at the mention of ‘15% additional stake’. He knew this offer was a steal the moment he heard it. With new found vigor, he moved towards the screen and tapped his fingers on it at lightning speed. A computer voice then read out “Unicom current market value is US$ 0.5 billion, Peak Value 20 years ago: US$ 500 billion.”
Lee Hyun’s eyes twinkled, this was indeed a steal! 15% stake meant US$ 75 million was upfront and with potential to increase it 500 times or more! Greed glistened in Lee Hyun’s eyes. How long ago was it that he felt such greed, maybe 40 years ago? When he first started playing Royal Road. Having tasted success in Continent of Magic and Royal Road, Lee Hyun thought he could replicate the success in other popular titles. Especially since the number of virtual players around the world had gone up by 100 times. However, Lee Hyun soon realized that it was not going to be that easy. The economic times were desperate and the people living in it were desperate; earning money through games became a popular mainstream job source. Seeing the opportunity, some people set up companies, where players worked in teams to gather information and provide services (also known as ProGaming Companies). Becoming number one in a game became impossibly harder. Eventually, as economics would dictate, the returns to professional gaming were normalized. No longer did there exist the opportunity to earn
millions. Lee Hyun grew wary of professional gaming and turned to other activities where there was still money to be made. After making sizeable amount of money from Professional Gaming Lectures as a professor and Brand Ambassadors for many games, he was forced into retirement at the age of 40 by his sister and wife who were worried about his health. From then till now, Lee Hyun was stayed away from the media limelight and slowly but surely the world forgot about Lee Hyun – the God of professional gaming as they nicknamed him.
Lee Hyun replayed the message twice and went through all of it in great detail. He then surfed the web reading articles and recent news. After six hours or so of receiving the mail, he tapped on the screen twice (which brought him to the homepage) and click a ‘Reply with Call’ icon. “Calling Kang Jin Cheol.”
Kang Jin Cheol joined Unicorn around the same time Lee Hyun retired (which also happened to be around the time when most of the initial players started to quit the game). He began as “Advisor of Royal Road Trade” where he monitored (and at times corrected / manipulated) trading prices of items in Royal Road. His keen sense of making money soon elevated him to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Unicorn Corp. With the sudden resignation of the CEO, many board members wanted Jin Cheol to take the place of the CEO. But Jin Cheol understood his limitations, he trained in trading and wasn’t the visionary that could turn around the firm. To turn around Unicorn, they needed innovation and creativity something which he only saw in Lee Hyun. Thus, he nominated Lee Hyun’s name (and resume) to the Board and it was accepted. That’s when the offer was made, today at 9AM.
“Lee Hyun! I knew you would call!” Jin Cheol was slightly surprised, he expected Lee Hyun to at least think a day over the offer (6 hours was too short!). “Well did the offer grab your attention?” Jin Cheol asked with a sly smile on his face. Jin Cheol was pleased, he had masterminded the offer. It was not too much and not too little. He knew Lee Hyun well and knew that Lee Hyun would only take interest if there was possibility to do make more.
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“It did.” Lee Hyun admitted. “But, I think we need to discuss the finer details. Lets meet up for lunch at the Pinnacle. My treat.”
Kang Jin Cheol nervously glanced at Lee Hyun (note: this is a video call). “Finer details? The Pinnacle? Your treat?” If anything that Kang Jin Cheol had learnt from Lee Hyun was that Lee Hyun never gave anything for free.
“Yes that very Pinnacle and my treat. See you at 3 today then.” Lee Hyun then abruptly hung up the call.
A loud cheer broke out in the conference room where Kang Jin Cheol took the call. All the board
members present were extremely happy. Lee Hyun who avoided the world so ferociously (more like forced by his sister) for the last 20 years was finally snagged! Sweat rolled down Kang Jin Cheol’s forehea. None of them knew Lee Hyun as he did. Lee Hyun was a shark; a terribly vicious shark. In Kang Jin Cheol’s mind, Lee Hyun wasn’t the golden goose which laid the golden eggs. No rather Lee Hyun was the person who would take your golden goose and the golden eggs and ask you for money for doing so!!
Kang Jin Cheol’s secretary dragged him to the elevator. “We don’t have much time Sir!” She said. “He said 3. You have less than an hour to reach the Pinnacle and we need to grab you a suit, something worthy of the Pinnacle.”
Kang Jin Cheol was still disoriented, was it really a good idea to bring Lee Hyun aboard? Either way, he knew he was running out of time. They had tried almost everything, from hiring the brightest in business schools to the best Virtual Gaming CEOs. Unicorn was a sinking ship and if they didn’t act fast enough, there would be nothing left to save.
“We had exhausted all options and Lee Hyun is the last resort. Lee Hyun is the last resort. This is the correct thing to do. The correct…” Kang Jin Cheol repeated it to himself as the elevator sped down the eighty stories of Unicorn’s head quarter building. His secretary who stood alongside him gave a puzzled look, she never played Royal Road with Weed. So she clearly had no clue what Kang Jin Cheol was going through.
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Authors Note:
1. Editing Credits: Knaivvs
2. In case you skipped the prologue, I strongly recommend reading it. Otherwise the starting of this chapter would come across disconnected.
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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